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78 



'^ 



ThcWcckly Florists^ Review* 



JUNB 1. 1906. 



the world before, with a delicious flavor 

 unlike either of its ancsstors, and plenti- 

 ful in nutrients and beautiful in color. 

 Incidentally, the plum-cot with the pri- 

 mus berry, disproves the dictum of scien- 

 tists that new species cannot be pro- 

 duced by man. 



Amaryllis blooms ten inches in diame- 

 ter of excellent coloring are among his 

 product") ; also new types of gladiolus, 

 some with the flowers set all around the 

 stalk and- not all on one side, as is the case 

 with the . type, but whether they will 

 rank with the njew type raised by Groflf, 

 can only be determined by experiment. 

 A dahlia with the perfume of the mag- 

 nolia is another of his achievements. 



The Shasta daisy and other varieties 

 when first sent out seemed to be dis- 

 appointments, but now appear to be giv-f 

 ing better satisfaction. Mr. Harw.ood 

 apparently^'confounds the English daisy 

 with ths common field daisy now grow- 

 ing in such abundance in America when 

 he says the ' ' tiny field daisy. " It is 

 not so very tiny, whereas the English 

 dfvis\' may proi)erly be oalled tiny in 

 comparison, and botanically Mane, of the 

 parents of the Shasta, I believe, is a 

 chrysanthemumi C. Lfeucanthemuni. 

 whereas the English daisy is a bellis. 



Another creation under way is the 

 * ' pomato, ' ' which may be called a to- 

 mato growing upon a potato. This has 

 been done in days gone by by others by 

 grafting a tomato upon a potato, but 

 Mr. Burbank's pomato is being pro- 

 duced presumably through the more 

 legitimate way of crossing and seeding 

 and selection. 



Great things are expected by Mr. Bur- 

 bank's improvement of the Australian 

 star flower. Seed of the original has 

 been offered by most of the leading 

 .seedsmen this year. It js quite a promis- 

 ing flowering plant. It is bright pink, 

 and fragrant, and the flowers are said 

 to retain their form and coloring al- 

 most indefinitely and are recommended 

 to be used on ladies ' hats in millinery. 



A new type of larkspur he has estab- 

 lished, much enlarged, with a delicious 

 odor, and the color combinations are far 

 finer than the common larkspur. It 

 would b3 interesting and instructive to 

 see these and some of the greatly im- 

 proved European forms grown ?ide by 

 side. 



In referring to the white blackberry, 

 it is said by Mr. Harwood that Mr. Bur- 

 bank chose one plant out of 65,000. It 

 would be interesting to know whether 

 Mr. Burbank made an effort to produce 

 a white blackberry, or was it what is 

 called a sport. It appears to me that 

 the "Iceberg" blackberry was an ac- 

 cident, for I do not know of anything 

 in that line to work on that would be 

 likely to give the results as they are. 



Mr. Burbank has accomplished great 

 things with the plum; mostly all of 

 those so-called Japanese are the result 

 of his manipulations. He now has 300,- 

 000 distinct varieties of plums, 60,000 

 peaches and nectarines, 5,000 to 6,000 

 almonds, 2,000 cherries, as many pears, 

 1,000 grapes, 3,000 apples, 1,200 quinces, 

 5,000 walnuts, the same number of chest- 

 nuts, with many thousands of other 

 fruits, flowers and vegetables, which he 

 is working on to improve. 



Mr. Harwood relates very entertain- 

 ingly how Mr. Burbank was walking one 

 summer evening through his experiment- 

 al grounds past a bank of verbenas, a 

 scentless sort which he was breeding up 

 into a finer variety. On this occasion he 

 was attracted by a faint, sweet odor 



fvom the bed; he tried to locate the 



flowers emitting the perfume, but was 



unable to do so. A year later, passing 



by the bed, he was again attracted by 



the odor of the trailing arbutus. 



with his characteristic patience he went 

 over the plants one by one until, at last, he 

 found the one that had the elusive odor. It 

 was at once Isolated, and Its seeds were 

 saved and planted with great care. Succeed- 

 ing sets of seeds were planted, year by yeai 

 the plants were challenged. The scent be- 

 er, me more and more pronounced, continuing 

 In Its likeness to the arbutus, and becoming, 

 at last, greatly intensified. 



No doubt at all this is quite true, for 

 it is no new thing to have fragrant ver- 

 bena flowers. In the days when ver- 

 benas were more generally popular than 

 they -now are, some of the cultivated va- 

 rieties at that time produced flowers 

 with a decided odor, and in the evening 

 it was when thewe Howers gave off their 

 scent, which was truly suggestive of the 

 trailing arbutus. I have not grown the 

 verbena for many years, but as I re- 



E. Sutermeister. 



member them, some varieties were ab- 

 solutely without fragrance, whereas 

 others were decidedly sweet. While the 

 color may not have influenced the odor, 

 there were colors which were more likely 

 to be scented than others. The scarlets 

 and bright pinks were generally scent- 

 lees, while the purples and whites most 

 often had the arbutus-like smell. And, 

 again, if my memory serves correctly, 

 there were many variations from that 

 rule. If there are any verbena growers 

 present, they, I hope, will throw more 

 light on this subject. If Mr. Dillon is 

 present, who grows 500,000 verbenas an- 

 nually, he may help us. 



It will be remembered that Mr. Har- 

 wood, in introducing the verbena sub- 

 ject, stated that Mr. Burbank passed a 

 bank of verbenas, a scentless variety, 

 from which we might infer that he 

 knew there were other varieties which 

 were fragrant, but he did not say so; 

 hence I have taken the liberty of men- 

 tioning the fact that there are many 

 varieties already in cultivation which 

 are quite fragrant. 



Mr. Burbank has promised us a blue 

 rose, "when he has time." I have 

 heard it said by some florists that at 

 certain periods of the year there are 

 too many blue roses already. Let us 

 hope that Mr. Burbank has in his mind's 

 eye a blue rose, with the typical forget- 

 me-not blue or with the hue of the Del- 



phinium formosum, for nothing short of 

 either of the two shades of blue, or some- 

 thing intermediate between them, will 

 satisfy us. 



Mr. Burbank has increased the size ( f 

 the flower of a sedum, but which of the 

 numerous species and varieties he has so 

 improved is not stated. He has raised 

 a pampas grass with pink plumes, bi;t 

 what is the shade of pinkf Is it tl^e 

 color of Carnation Enchantress or Scott 

 or Lawson? It would be interesting to 

 know. 



Great things are expected from a new 

 hybrid tobacco, which is stated to be 

 much thriftier and better adapted to 

 colder climates and finer in flavor than 

 the best tobacco now grown. 



8ome statements are made to the ef- 

 fect that thirty-six apples, no t^o alike, 

 were all grown from the seed of one 

 apple. There is nothing unusual about 

 that. It would be strange if the results 

 had proven to be otherwise. Mr. Har- 

 wood evidently is not very familiar with 

 grafting fruit trees, for he says: 



In grafting apples, the same tree is used 

 often year in and year out, as many as 400 

 apples growing on the tree at the same 

 time. 



What is the idea he wished to con- 

 vey in that statement? Four hundred 

 would not be a large crop of apples on 

 a large tree. Let's go on further: 



Sometimes other fruits are grafted upon the 

 tree, so that there may be five hundred va- 

 rieties of fruit growing at once from the 

 parent tree. 



Great Scott! I wish Mr. Harwood 

 had taken the time to name a few of 

 the "other fruits" grafted on the par- 

 ent tree. I believe it is possible to have 

 500 varieties of apples on one tree if 

 there were that number of twigs to 

 graft upon and that number of varieties 

 to graft. The so-called parent tree, even 

 then could only be a foster parent at 

 best. 



The elieapnus fruit has long been used 



for preserving, and it is good news to 



know that Mr. Burbank has added this 



to his other triumphs by improving it. 



The English walnut has had the bitter 



skin bred out of it, and the size of the 



kernel and the whiteness thereof have 



been increased. Good news! But here 



is a paragraph hard to understand: 



In passing, it may be noted here that Mr. 

 Burbank has accomplished that which Dar- 

 win hinted at, but accepted with reseryatlons, 

 the grafting of one tree upon another and at 

 the same time the transformation of the tree 

 without fertilization, the accomplishment of 

 a complete cross by the graft. He took a 

 Piench plum unknown in America, and graft- 

 ed it upon a Japanese plum. The graft bore 

 no bloom, but the tree was recreated, if you 

 vill. Its seedlings took on a wholly new life 

 and became hybrids, its vital essence was 

 changed through the medium of the graft. 



There is nothing at all difficult in 

 grafting a French plum on a Japanese 

 plum, even if the French plum were un- 

 known in America. Here is something 

 hard to understand. "The graft born 

 no bloom." Yet its seedlings took on 

 a wholly new life and became hybrids! 

 Where did the seedlings come from if 

 this new creation bore no bloom t Hov 

 could there be seedlings if there were 

 no seeds. There could *€ no seeds i^ 

 there were no bloom. If there were no 

 petals, there must have been a pistil and 

 stamens, or there could have been no 

 fruit, no seeds, and consequently no seed- 

 lings. Something very important has 

 been left out in what Mr. Harwood has 

 been trying to elucidate. It is possibl" 

 that the combination of the saps of tho 

 French and Japanese plums has caused 

 the resultant tree to produce a shoot that 

 was different from the stock, and this 

 shoot would be called, generally speak* 



